Resumen de ‘Women’s Tales’: Postfeminist Adventures into Consumerville

Elena Caoduro

• This article examines the project ‘Women’s Tales’, an on-going series of short films that fashion designer Miuccia Prada commissioned from international female directors, among them Lucrecia Martel, Ava DuVernay and Agnès Varda. By situating this endeavour in relation to female agency, authorial expressivity, and consumerism, it is argued that the project conforms to postfeminist media culture for its celebration of feminine bonds, makeover strategies and the use of luxury as a tool for pleasure and empowerment. As a series of fashion films at the interstices of different systems – advertisement and art, film and online media, experimental and mainstream practices – ‘Women’s Tales’ occasionally contains critical potential, but it nevertheless struggles to challenge existing fashion paradigms. This article questions the postfeminist ethos that the project espouses, claiming that through its in-between, interstitial status, ‘Women’s Tales’ destabilise representational conventions without really disrupting the paradigms of fashion.